Sunday, July 14, 2013

Four Wives Story: Why a Woman can't marry morethan one Husband?

In a delightful report about how Imam Abu Hanifareceived his name
(his original name was Numan bin Thabit bin Zuta bin Mah), an account
of why the wife is forbidden to take morethan one husband is
recounted. 'Abu Hanifa' isan unusual name because it means 'the father
of Hanifah', and Hanifah was his daughter. It was not the custom in
those days to do this. Normally, the name would be 'the father of the
name of a son.' How this came about is quite edifying.
One day Imam Abu Hanifawas asked a question that, for the first time
in his illustrious career, he was unable to answer. The question was,
" Why were women forbidden to marry more than one husband at a
time?"
To make a long story short, Abu Hanifa's daughter said that she knew
the answer and would solve this questionif her father would make a
promise to her that if she succeeded in solving this problem, he would
then assure her a place inhistory. Abu Hanifa agreed.
So she gathered a group of women together and gave each of them a cup.
Then she brought in a large bowl of milk and asked each of them to dip
their cups in the milk and to fill their cups. They did so. She then
asked them to pour back the milk into the bowl. They did this too. She
then asked them to re-filltheir cups taking back only their own milk
that they had poured into the bowl.
This, obviously, was impossible to do. Hanifahhad clearly
demonstratedthe kind of predicament that would be created if a woman
had several husbands. With more than one husband, if she were to
become pregnant, she would have exceptional difficulties determining
who the actual father was? Identifying parentage and lineage would
then be insurmountable for the offspring. Imam Abu Hanifa was so
pleased with her answer that he took the name 'Abu Hanifa', 'the
father of Hanifah', so his daughter did indeed earn a place in
history.

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